by John French
Magnus…? he thought, but felt nothing.
Magnus was not there.
That could not be right…
He thought of the daemon grinning at him against the background of Prospero, and the figure beneath the red robe in his dreams.
He broke the thought off before it grew. There were things that needed to happen now. Time, once let slip, would flow on without remorse.
They needed to take the ritual sites. The Rubricae standing in the burning fog around him would pour outwards, and more were poised on gunships above, ready to dive to the surface. The daemon flying machines were already scattering in the wake of the fire wave, but they were not enough. The planet was reeling from the first moment of attack, but that would not last. Even he, and all who stood with him, could not break the Planet of the Sorcerers and the hosts of the Crimson King. At least not alone.
He broke the moment.
Time snapped back with a boom of sudden sounds.
Ctesias,+ he called, and felt his thoughts connect to the summoner’s mind. +Now, Ctesias. Call them.+
The first true name came out of Ctesias’s mouth as a black serpent of smoke. It grew as he bit through the syllables. The disc was circling in the air, hundreds of metres above the ruin caused by Ahriman’s manifestation on the surface. The Athenaeum twitched in its bindings but remained still. His mouth was dry. Blisters popped in his throat. The serpent wormed out and out, light and colour splitting its body as it swam into being.
Ctesias felt his lips split and blood flowed down his chin. He had pulled his helm off, and the furnace heat of the planet’s air scoured his face. He kept on speaking. The serpent began to wind around itself and swell. Fissures of blue light ran through it. Smoke became scales. And it grew and grew.
‘Cth’arg’gan…’ he intoned as the black knot of daemon flesh grew in the air. Laughter chirruped in Ctesias’s ears. A long neck thrust from the mass. Claws ripped the cracks wider. Huge pinions spread out as the last of the casing fell away from the creature within. It stood on air, its wings scattering burning blood with each slow beat. Quills covered its translucent skin. It looked at Ctesias, red eyes mocking in a flayed vulture skull.
Ctesias could not speak, but he did not need to. He had already bound the daemon and it knew his will and would obey.
‘Uth’alg’carn’a’ha…’ Unclean sounds kept pouring from Ctesias’s mouth.
The vulture-headed daemon clacked its beak. Ctesias felt the bark of mocking laughter as a shiver in his skull, but the daemon had already turned in mid-air, its wings furling as it plummeted to join the daemon engines spiralling around the ruined towers. Other shapes, both vast and small, moved across the ground as the defenders of the planet swarmed back into the City of Towers.
He gripped his staff and the names ripped from him. The true names were coming from his lips faster now. Chains of broken sounds poured out of him as he collapsed the cells of his memory. Larvae of rotting flesh tumbled from wet blisters. Wings of dry skin flickered. Clouds of flies blended with the smoke. Black splits opened in nothing. Hunched creatures with countless eyes and teeth leapt from the shadows of their birth. They followed the vulture daemon down to battle, whooping and buzzing with glee. Cosmic rivalries meant nothing to them. There, in that moment, the god they served was Ctesias.
And the names poured on, pulling hounds of flayed skin and brass from the embers of ruins, and calling legions from the air.
He saw the first of them reach the defenders, saw the blood arc up as the first mutant died. Then fresh fire and lightning rippled across the ground as the hosts met. The air began to buckle, like paper shredded by raindrops.
He was still speaking names as his disc skimmed between ruined towers. Daemons tumbled into being in his wake. He was barely conscious now, but his mouth kept moving as his mind emptied its secrets into reality. Through blood-blurred eyes, he could see the first wave of defenders die, and flee, and his daemons pull them down. Blood was cooking as it pooled in the rubble. He saw goat-headed mutants try to stand and become scraps of fur and chewed meat.
That did not matter. He was almost spent, but the last names in his mind were those he had buried deepest, those that he had split and split, and chained in darkness so deep that he could forget that they existed. They were the greatest daemons he had ever captured, exalted creatures, enthroned princes in the courts and circles of their gods. And – by fate and ill fortune – his to call.
He had begun to speak the first shuddering syllable of those last names as he skimmed around the stump of a jade tower.
The world vanished in a deluge of neon fire. His disc saved him, jinking aside as the torrent of fire chewed the rubble beneath where he had been.
His head came up as the disc slewed around. The half-formed name he had been speaking bit into his cheeks.
A battle Titan towered above him. A second city of towers rode on its shoulders. Gun mouths studded its body, dripping flame and molten gold. Cracked bone and silver chains hung from a frame that flowed like muscle but gleamed like chrome. Shields of pearlescent light cloaked it, and copper-skinned daemons clung to its joints. The cannon on its left arm clanked as the barrels turned.
He looked at it, unable to move or speak.
The horns set in its head bellowed. It was laughing at him. And he knew why. He knew it. Long ago, in an age of different masters and different mistakes, he had bound nine daemons into its broken body. He had created it, and now on the planet he had been exiled from, he faced it and knew that he should have given it to the lava seas after it had fallen in battle the first time. Czetherrtihor, Fallen Warlord Titan of Legio Tempestus, tilted its head – as though examining something fascinating but insignificant – and fired.
The host of the Exiles spread through the ruins. Rubricae marched through the rubble, firing, falling, and rising again without faltering. The dead of Prospero went with them. Giants of shattered armour and crystal strode forwards, bellowing with the voices of burning wolves. Bolts of fire slammed into them, tearing chunks from their bulks even as their bodies reformed. They waded through packs of mutants, scattering them with sweeps of arms made of broken weapons and spikes of glass. Gunfire latticed the air. Lightning and telekinetic storms rolled across the curtain of the sky. Ctesias’s daemons stained the smoke with witch-light. Above, the shapes of the circling daemon machines were ragged shadows beneath the bellies of the warships.
And the Rubricae marched on and on, silent, following this last call to war without a whisper. Ahriman went with them.
Do they know? he wondered for a second. Do they feel the world of their rebirth beneath their feet? He pushed outwards, touching the minds of Kiu and Gilgamos as they marched with the vanguard. They could feel it: the resonance of where they were and what they were doing. They stood now on the ground they had been banished from, on the world which had shaken to the first Rubric. The echoes of those moments were still there, trembling beneath the surface of the air, sleeping in the stones and dust. The circle was closing.
Inner focal points reached. There is a lot of resistance.+ Gilgamos’s sending from the edge of the city was laced with tension as the augur skimmed the near future for threats. Time was awash with contradictions, and beyond a few minutes everything dissolved into wild uncertainty. Ahriman breathed calm into his brother. Everything was as it should be, chaos was a part of the pattern, part of the unfolding future they were creating. They were almost ready, and when they were, the new Rubric would rise.
All they would then need to do was hold until it was done.
XIX
Shards
‘What was that?’ Knekku’s eyes stayed fixed on the air opposite the fire. For an instant there had been a female human standing there. The firelight had glinted from polished armour and the feathers of raven wings had furled at her back. She had looked at him with frosted eyes. He had opened his mouth to speak. The
n she had not been there, as though she had slid out of being.
‘A ghost,’ said the hooded figure from beside the fire.
‘There are no ghosts,’ said Knekku, shaking his head but keeping his eyes on the empty shadows.
The figure laughed, and Avenisi hissed from beside him.
‘Accurate. Overly analytical and based on one view of truth to the exclusion of all others, but accurate.’ The figure turned to reveal a wound of a smile. ‘It has been a long time, Knekku. I had almost forgotten the shape of your soul.’
Knekku turned, snarling, eyes searching for an opening in the stone walls beyond the circle of light.
‘I have no–’
‘Time for this?’ said the figure, and something in its tone made him turn. The hooded figure was stirring the fire with a blackened stick again. ‘Is that it? You have no time for this conversation? You have been walking for what feels like days, but for your body it has only been a handful of hours. What could have happened in mere hours, Knekku? Can calamity fall in such a short time?’
The figure dropped the stick it had been stirring the fire with. The flames leapt up. The shadows were suddenly a pitch-black void. Knekku took a step back, his hand rising on instinct. Light poured between his fingers. There were shapes in the fire. He could see towers melting like candles. War machines strode beneath flocks of winged daemon engines. Warriors in high-crested helms marched forwards from hurricane winds, firing as they advanced. He stepped closer.
‘This is…’
‘Happening now,’ said the robed figure. ‘Or maybe it is what is going to happen, or what has just happened?’ The robed figure shrugged. ‘From here it is difficult to tell.’
Knekku spun and strode into the dark.
‘You will not reach the battle in time,’ called the voice from behind him. He turned. The flames had shrunk, and the scenes within had melted into nothing. ‘Chances are you will not reach it at all. Not alone. Not in this place.’
‘You are not Magnus.’
The figure shrugged, and its robe shifted over hunched shoulders.
‘But I am. I am your father. I was there when you were raised to the rank of Torquaret in the mysteries of Prospero. I gave you the Crusade Banner of the Legion to bear on Gelph. When your death had come for you on Prospero, you called out to me, to ask me to forgive your weakness in falling. When you woke on the Planet of the Sorcerers, it was with life in your veins and without your wounds. You never knew I heard your cries, Knekku, none of you did.’
The scar tissue on Magnus’s face set in an unreadable expression.
‘I did hear, my son.’
Knekku shook his head.
‘What happened to you, sire?’
‘I am no king!’ Magnus spat, and he began to rise, anger twisting his face and blazing in his eye. Knekku flinched back a step. Avenisi leapt away, hissing, hackles raised. Magnus stopped, his exposed flesh trembling, and then folded back to his seat. When he spoke, his voice sounded old and tired. ‘I am no king. My shame was to ever pretend to a crown, even in jest.’ He nodded to himself. Avenisi relaxed and slunk back to his side, but kept its eyes open and watched Magnus without blinking. ‘You asked what happened to me.’
‘You said to me that you had made a mistake. That is why I came for you.’
‘I did not tell you that, but mistakes have been made.’
‘You said you were–’
‘I said that I was Magnus the Red. I said that I was your father. And that I am, Knekku. That I am.’ Magnus turned his head and looked to where the shadows hid the cave wall. ‘But I am not alone.’
Knekku felt his anger rise. He thought of his primarch, a broken and burning angel on a throne, and of the vision he had seen in the fire, of the world he had said he would protect being torn down. He shook his head slowly.
‘I came here to find the Crimson King. End this dance of words. Take me to him.’
‘I cannot.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he is already here.’ Magnus raised a hand and flexed his fingers, running them through the shadows. ‘He is sat at this same spot, a shadow away, a reflection away.’ The fire dimmed and the darkness around them thickened, the red-robed figure of Magnus becoming a dim smudge. Images of other seated figures flickered into being where he was: a hunched creature of claws and teeth, a copper angel, a grey ghost in chains, and on and on, their features blurring like the faces of flicked divination cards. Behind each he glimpsed walls of black rock, of shining crystal, of twisted bone, backdrops which ranged from a palace, to the bars of a prison, to the ruins of a city.
Then the flicker-blur image ceased and the scarred face of Magnus, his father, looked at him from beneath its red cowl. Knekku opened his mouth, struggling to process what he had seen.
‘How…?’ he began.
Magnus shook his head, and fixed his one eye on Knekku.
‘Listen,’ he said.
Iobel glanced to the side and then back to the Crimson King. Red light bled from his eye.
She shook her head.
‘This is a dream of Ahriman’s,’ she said. ‘It cannot be anything else. I am dead. I am a memory.’
‘Who is not? Seen from one point in time, all of life has already been lived.’ The Crimson King leaned forwards, and something like pain moved across his face. ‘Existence is a memory.’
‘But this is…?’
‘It is the Labyrinth. It has always been, and always will be. Every soul who seeks and dreams passes through it.’
‘The warp,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said the Crimson King. ‘The warp. In a manner you cannot comprehend, this is the warp.’
‘And if that is true, what am I?’
‘A traveller, an echo, a curiosity, choose your metaphor, inquisitor. You came seeking me and here you find me.’ The Crimson King’s voice rose. The light grew in the fire. His wings rustled, and vast feather-edged shadows spread across the cave walls. When he spoke again his voice was the deep growl of a volcano. He no longer seemed broken or weak. He seemed magnificent, and powerful, and terrifying. ‘And now, Iobel, you will do my will.’
She tried to take a step backwards, but could not move, and the eye of the Crimson King was boring into her. She had been wrong to come this far, wrong to follow her need for answers. She was…
She was already dead.
‘No…’ she growled. ‘You are just another lost dream, and you have no dominion over me.’
The pressure around her fell away. The radiance around the Crimson King slipped. She could see the weakness and wounds on him again now, the cracks in his copper skin, the brittleness of his angelic form. She spat, and turned her back.
‘Wait.’ The voice caught her as she began to walk away. ‘I can give you what you are seeking, Iobel.’
She turned. The Crimson King sat again, his presence somehow diminished from even what it had been before.
‘What do I seek?’ she asked.
‘Answers.’ She did not move or speak, but after a second the Crimson King began to talk again. ‘I was broken. Long ago, in the War against my brothers and father. My reach exceeded my power, and in reaching further still I shattered.’
‘How?’
‘That is another tale, and one that I will not speak. Besides, how it happened is of no importance now. Only the consequences matter.’
He reached into the fire and took a fistful of embers. He flung them into the air. The bright motes struck the darkness, and light radiated from them as images unfolded from nowhere.
A statue of a great bird shimmered before her eyes. It stood atop a cliff, and behind it a blue sky rose in a dome. Sunlight winked from the multi-coloured stone of the statue.
‘The bird of many colours,’ growled Iobel, ‘a symbol of the vile god you enslaved your Legion to. I know enough of your
heresy already, and I am growing tired of metaphor.’
He ignored her.
‘This is an old story, and one that has many meanings, but in this case the metaphor is so direct that it is as close to literal truth as I can show you.’
The image broadened and she saw a path running down the cliff beneath the statue. A figure climbed the path, red robe and copper skin clear under the light of the sun. The figure rounded the last bend, and halted as it saw the stone bird. For a second the red figure stood, and then took a step towards the statue. As the first step touched the dust of the road, the statue rocked, and then toppled over the edge of the cliff. She watched the stone bird fall, its carved feathers cutting through the sunlight as it plunged to the ground. Shards flew up from the impact, and the sound of shattering crystal filled the firelit cave.
Iobel stepped closer, unable to help her sudden curiosity. The floating image was now of the ground at the base of the cliff. Pieces of stone covered the ground. Some of the shards were small, almost grains of sand, others were larger and still bore the graven marks of feathers, or the tips of claws.
‘The statue is you,’ she said.
Magnus nodded.
‘I fell and was broken into many pieces, some small, some large, but all part of a whole, and each less than that whole.’
Iobel’s eyes found a small piece from which an eye looked back at her in blue crystal.
‘You are just one piece,’ she breathed. ‘A divided being, each part separate from the other.’
‘It almost destroyed me, and would have done, if it had not been for Ahriman.’
‘He–’
‘Saved me, or saved something. Just as with everything my greatest son does, there were flaws he did not see. Flaws that even I did not sense at the time.’
‘Flaws?’
Magnus did not reply, but gestured at the image of the stone shards. They flew through the air, joining together as they ascended, until the stone bird stood once again on the edge of the cliff.